The Direction I Failed to Run Toward at Eighteen

Alistair Marshall’s voice was poison as the needle slid into my vein. “Lydia,” he whispered, “go back to the girl who only had eyes for me.” When I opened my eyes, I saw his face—a mask of false devotion. I pulled my hand back, finding hands once insured for millions now cracked and calloused. Seeing my daze, he smiled. “The drug worked. It reverts your memory to eighteen.” “Welcome back, Lydia. For ten years you’ve been hysterical, accusing me about Penelope. Now we can start over.” I looked toward the doorway. A woman in white stood there, timid yet provocative. “Lydia, you’re awake,” she cooed. “Mr. Marshall turned down a million-dollar contract to stay with you.” I ignored her. Under my pillow, my fingers found a leather journal. Inside, in my own writing: Lydia Prescott, if you’re reading this, that bastard Alistair really did it. Do not trust him. You are the Prescott heiress. You never loved him. I closed the journal, heart aching. So this is what I became? This broken shell? Alistair waited for me to fall into his arms. Fighting nausea, I smiled mockingly. “Sorry, old man. Who are you?”

1 The smile on Alistair’s face froze. But he quickly composed himself, chalking it up to the kind of playful tantrum my eighteen-year-old self was known for. “Lydia, don’t play games. I’m your husband, Alistair Marshall.” “You used to love calling me Alistair. You told me it was love at first sight, that you were willing to cut ties with your family just to marry me.” He spoke as he reached for my hand. I sidestepped his touch, my gaze landing on the dust-covered Steinway grand piano in the corner. My most prized possession. Now, it was treated like a storage shelf, piled high with junk: Penelope’s cheap handbag, a stack of Alistair’s files, and an unopened, tacky piece of lingerie. “That’s my piano.” My voice was ice as I pointed at the heap of garbage. Penelope scurried over, making a great show of sweeping the items aside. But in her haste, she “accidentally” knocked over a cup of coffee, spilling it all over the keys. The dark brown liquid bled between the black and white, a grotesque scar. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Penelope gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as tears instantly welled in her eyes. “Lydia, I didn’t mean to… I was just trying to help you clean up…” A furious roar filled my ears. Almost instinctively, I raised my hand to slap some sense into this insipid, conniving woman. But before my palm could connect, my wrist was caught in an iron grip. Alistair pulled Penelope behind him, a look of pained concern on his face as he frowned at me. “Lydia, don’t take it out on her.” “It’s just an old piano. You haven’t touched it in five years anyway. Ever since you fired the housekeeper out of jealousy and insisted on doing all the chores yourself, these hands have been useless. What’s the point of keeping it?” He grabbed my ruined hand, his tone laced with a sick, twisted sort of pride. “Look. These hands may not be able to play the piano anymore, but they’ve washed my clothes. They’ve cooked my meals.” “Every callus on them is a medal of your love for me.” I stared at his self-satisfied face, then glanced down at the journal on my lap. On page 15, it read: Alistair was drunk. He burned the back of my hand with his cigarette. He said he hated the way I looked when I played the piano, so aloof and superior. He said I only looked like a real wife when I was on my knees, scrubbing the floor. I turned my hand over. Sure enough, there was a round, ugly cigarette burn marring the skin. So this was his “medal.” A wave of bitter sorrow washed over me. Not for him, but for the version of me who had cried herself to sleep, night after night, in utter despair. Lydia Prescott, what did you go through to be broken so completely? “Alistair.” I snatched my hand back. I took a wet wipe from the nightstand and began methodically cleaning each finger he had touched, as if trying to scrub off a virus. “Since the piano is dirty, just throw it out.” “This entire house, in fact, makes me sick.” Alistair’s brow furrowed, and he was about to retort when his phone rang. To display his supposed transparency, he put it on speaker. A man’s fawning voice came through the line. “Mr. Marshall, that ‘Eternal Love’ diamond ring you ordered has arrived. The inscription ‘For my beloved Penelope’ is all done. Should I have it delivered tonight?”

2 The air in the room turned to ice. Penelope couldn’t hide the delighted surprise in her eyes. She lowered her head, feigning shyness. “Oh, Alistair… you shouldn’t have…” Alistair fumbled to end the call, his eyes darting toward me. He expected me to scream, to fly into a rage, to interrogate him with the same hysterical fury I apparently had before. After all, the diary detailed how the twenty-eight-year-old Lydia had turned herself into a haggard shrew over trivial matters like this. But he was about to be disappointed. To my eighteen-year-old self, this scene wasn’t infuriating. It was comical. I simply sat there, even picking up my chopsticks to eat a piece of braised pork. “How lovely,” I commented coolly. “‘Beloved Penelope.’ It has a nice ring to it. After all, garbage belongs with the trash.” Alistair was stunned. He stared into my eyes, searching for a flicker of jealousy or pain. All he found was a dead, chilling indifference. That indifference terrified him. It was a sign that I was slipping from his control. He took a deep breath, reverting to his old tactics of manipulation. “Lydia, are you jealous?” “I know that ring is the style you’ve always wanted. We were poor back then, and I couldn’t afford it. You suffered so much with me…” “Now that I have money, I want to make it up to you. But Penelope has been with me for years, without any official title. This is just a small token to comfort her.” He grew more confident with every word, seemingly moved by his own twisted generosity. “Come on, Lydia, stop this. Tonight is our wedding anniversary. I have a surprise for you.” “As long as you behave, accept Penelope, we can all be a happy family again, just like before.” I put down my chopsticks and looked at this insufferably arrogant man. And I laughed. I laughed so hard tears started to form in my eyes. “Alistair, are you an idiot?” I grabbed the journal and, in one swift motion, hurled it at his face. It hit him with a sharp, satisfying crack. He staggered back, stunned, a red mark blooming on his forehead. “Who told you I was in love with you when I was eighteen?” I stood up, looking down on him as if he were an insect. “When I was eighteen, I was the diamond of the city’s high society. The line of men trying to date me could have circled the city three times over.” “And you? You were just a scholarship kid in a washed-out shirt, too poor to even afford meat in the university cafeteria.” The color drained from Alistair’s face. That was the past he fought so desperately to forget. “The only reason I ever gave you a second glance was because you reminded me of a pathetic stray dog my family once took in.” “Loving you was something that foolish future version of Lydia did.” “As for me, right now, all I want is for you to…” “Get out of my house with nothing but the clothes on your back.”

3 Alistair wasn’t enraged by my demand for long. He touched the red mark on his forehead, and instead of anger, a knowing, condescending smile spread across his face. “What’s this? Your memory reverts to eighteen, and your temper along with it?” He calmly picked the journal up from the floor and tossed it into the trash can as if it were a child’s toy. “As I recall, the eighteen-year-old you would stand under the blazing sun for two hours just to catch a glimpse of me on the basketball court. This little act of disgust you’re putting on now…” He stepped closer, towering over me, and playfully twirled a lock of my hair between his fingers. His eyes held the mocking amusement of someone teasing a pet. “Are you trying to cover up the shame of me discovering your little secret crush? Or do you think playing the part of the proud, feisty girl is a better way to hold my interest?” My stomach churned. I was about to call him delusional, but he produced a black credit card from his pocket and tucked it into the collar of my dress. “Alright, that’s enough. The performance was good. This thorny little attitude is certainly more appealing than the crying lunatic you became.” “You will attend the charity gala with me tomorrow night. It’s Penelope’s first time at such an event, and she’s nervous. You were raised in high society; you know the rules. You’ll be her chaperone. Teach her how to socialize.” “Keep Penelope happy, and I’ll unfreeze the limit on this supplementary card. Your mother is still waiting for her medical funds overseas, isn’t she?” My entire body went rigid. So that was it. That was the leash he had me on. The journal mentioned it: the Prescott family had gone bankrupt, and my mother was critically ill in a hospital abroad. Alistair controlled all of her medical payments. He dangled life-saving money in front of me like a treat for a dog, and only if I obediently wagged my tail would he deign to spare a little. He seemed to relish shattering my eighteen-year-old high-society fantasy, turning and leaving with a contemptuous smirk. At the gala, Penelope wore the “Mermaid’s Tear” necklace Alistair had bought for a million dollars at auction, preening like a proud swan. I trailed behind them in an out-of-season black pantsuit, looking like a sullen butler. Alistair sipped his champagne, his gaze as arrogant as a lion tamer’s. “Go on. Play ‘Für Elise.’ It’s Penelope’s favorite.” Under the watchful eyes of the entire room, I sat at the piano. The hands once hailed as those of a prodigy were now covered in chemical burns and the ugly scar from a cigarette. The moment my fingers touched the keys, a shooting pain made them go stiff. The notes that came out were discordant, clashing, like noise. Penelope giggled behind her hand. “Oh dear, is Lydia trying to ruin the party on purpose?” Alistair slammed the piano lid shut, nearly crushing my fingers. He leaned in, his voice a furious whisper. “What are you trying to pull? Are you so desperate for my pity that you’d resort to self-harm?” Self-harm? I looked down at my hand, which was trembling uncontrollably. My fingertips were red and swollen, nearly numb from the impact. That instinctive flinch wasn’t a ploy. It was a decade of deep-seated, bone-deep terror of this man, embedded in the very cells of this body. And the pathetic irony was that he mistook that terror for love. He saw my brokenness as his prize. I forced myself to ignore the searing pain and met his gaze, which was filled with a mixture of disgust and smugness. Any hint of tears that the pain had brought to my eyes evaporated instantly. Seeing my silence, Alistair assumed he’d correctly guessed my intentions. He scoffed and shoved my hand away.

4 After the gala, as if to punish me for my “uncooperative” behavior, Alistair gave me the silent treatment. He and Penelope watched movies in his study, while I was forced to hand-wash his expensive suit in the cold night air. I took a pair of scissors and cut the five-thousand-dollar suit into ribbons, then flushed them down the toilet. Then, I snuck up to the attic. The journal mentioned that my twenty-eight-year-old self had hidden all of the mementos from my eighteenth year in a secret compartment in the attic. I found the small tin box. The moment I opened it, my eyes burned. Inside was a thick stack of letters, a withered dried-flower necklace, and a silver lighter engraved with the initials ‘D.K.’. These were memories that belonged only to me and him. The boy who was wild and rebellious to the world, but gentle only with me. When my family’s fortune collapsed, I had said the cruelest things imaginable to him, forcing him to go abroad so I wouldn’t drag him down. Then, I had turned around and married Alistair. I traced the engraving on the lighter, almost feeling the warmth it once held. “What are you doing?” A cold voice sliced through the silence behind me. I jumped, and the box fell from my hands, scattering its contents across the floorboards. Alistair stood in the doorway, his gaze dark and menacing as he stared at the letters on the floor. Then, a mocking sneer spread across his lips. He strode over, picked up one of the letters, and began to read it by the moonlight streaming through the window. “‘Lydia, wait for me. When I come back, I’ll give you a home…’” “Signed, D.K.?” Alistair looked as if he’d stumbled upon a hidden treasure. He threw his head back and laughed. “No wonder… no wonder you hid them all the way up here.” He pointed at the signature, a look of smug understanding on his face, as if he had just found irrefutable proof of my love for him. “Lydia Prescott, you tell me to get out, but behind my back, you’ve been hiding the love letters you wrote to me for ten years?” “D.K… Darling Marshall. So you’ve been secretly in love with me since you were eighteen?” I looked at this monumentally delusional man and felt a sense of pity at how absurd he was. “Alistair, have you ever looked in a mirror?” “D.K. stands for Damian Knight! As in, Damian Knight of the Knight family!” The smile vanished from Alistair’s face, replaced by a furious, violent rage. The name Damian Knight was a shadow that had haunted him his entire life. In university, Damian was the sun, and Alistair was the dirt. The only reason he had pursued me so relentlessly was for the chance to beat Damian, just once. “Shut up!” He struck me across the face. “You’re still trying to lie to me? Damian Knight died overseas years ago!” “You’re just saying his name to make me angry, to make me jealous!” He pulled out a lighter from his own pocket and set the pile of letters ablaze. The firelight danced across his twisted, contorted face. I lunged for the burning letters with my bare hands, my palms searing in the flames, but all I managed to grab was a handful of hot ash. Alistair kicked me away in disgust. “Stop the act. Tomorrow, we have a meeting with a trillion-dollar investment magnate. A real player.” “Cover up those disgusting injuries. If you dare to embarrass me in front of our guest, I’ll have them pull the plug on your mother.”

5 At the airport’s VIP terminal, Alistair was so nervous he kept wiping sweat from his brow. Penelope had shed her usual arrogance and clung to his arm like a docile pet. Only I stood there, my hands wrapped in thick gauze, my eyes empty as I stared at the arrival gate. With the letters gone, the last spark of light inside me had been extinguished. The only things keeping me upright were my hatred for Alistair and my concern for my mother. “Listen to me,” Alistair warned in a low voice. “This CEO is a difficult man. He’s ruthless and has no interest in women.” “When he gets here, you keep your mouth shut and stand in the back like you’re invisible.” “If I can secure this investment, Marshall Industries will ascend to a whole new level. I’ll finally be a part of the city’s true elite.” He adjusted his tie, his face alight with a desperate hunger for power. “He’s here!” A commotion erupted at the gate as a group of bodyguards in black suits emerged, surrounding a tall, imposing man. The man was dressed in a bespoke black suit, his posture ramrod straight, radiating an aura so powerful it was hard to look at him directly. He wore dark sunglasses, and his thin lips were set in a firm line, a clear warning to stay away. Alistair immediately plastered a fawning smile on his face and practically bowed as he scurried forward. “Mr. Knight! It is an honor, sir. I’m Alistair Marshall of Marshall Industries. Thank you so much for taking the time…” The man didn’t break his stride. He didn’t even glance in Alistair’s direction. He walked right past Alistair’s outstretched hand as if he were stepping around a piece of trash. Alistair’s hand hung in the air, his smile frozen on his face, a portrait of pure, unadulterated humiliation. Penelope tugged at his sleeve, her own composure crumbling. The man stopped directly in front of me. Through the dark lenses of his sunglasses, I felt an intense, burning gaze lock onto my face, then drop to my bandaged hands. The terminal fell deathly silent. Alistair scrambled to recover, rushing forward to explain. “Mr. Knight, my apologies, this is my wife. She doesn’t know any better. Please forgive her for startling you…” He reached out to pull me away. “Get out of the way! Don’t block Mr. Knight’s path!” CRACK! Before Alistair could finish his sentence, the man raised his hand and delivered a brutal backhand slap across his face.